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My district is moving towards standards-based grading.  Part of that process is having each of the content areas select priority (or power) standards.  Part of my job in the district is to help facilitate this with the science teachers.   I am struggling with how to go about doing this with our state science standards (which are NGSS with slight modifiation).    How do I select which DCI or more important than others?  How do we fit CC and SEP in the process as well?   Have any other schools gone through this process?  If so, how did you do it and what did you end up with in the end?

Thanks for any help and ideas.  

Hi, Amy –

I struggle with this. I don’t feel like you can really prioritize one standard over the next with NGSS. We have a similar situation with ELA/Math, but there are SO MANY MORE standards for them. We already have units with 2-3 (typically) standards in them and I’m just not willing to mark one as more important than the other.

If you are forced to, as sometimes we are, I would strongly suggest that you leave the performance expectations (standards) whole and do not try to break up the 3-Ds. We must focus on more than just the content if we’re going to shift teaching. Hopefully your admin team recognizes that or is willing to learn that.

Onward,

tcb